[MUSIC].

You struck it lucky.

Is that a fair, fair thing to say? >> Well lucky and, and, unfortunatebecause, once you find a particularlyimportant deposit.Which the Maya found important and inwhich they invested a lot of treasure andlabor.You've basically usurped your project.You've had to invest, reapportion howyou're spending your funds because thesefinds come along by sheer serendipity.By sheer chance, and you've got to dealwith them.One of these finds, too, was that of aroyal tomb and you can see behind us.The drawings that I did for some timeafterwards based on hundreds and hundredsof photographs.And many, many field records of what thistomb might have looked like.So, this is the most complex depositimaginable.And this is one that takes all of yourskill and then takes you beyond yourskill level.It's rather frightening to dig because ofthe level of responsibility involved. >> And it was also frightening I gatherbecause of the situation.Tell me, tell me the story of thediscovery. >> Well, it's, when you find one ofthese, sorts of tombs, in the old days ofcourse no had cell phones and you couldactually keep these things under lock and key so tospeak.But now every worker has a cell phone andbefore you know it in the regionalcapital there were taxi driversdiscussing our find and we had nosecurity at the site.So, all of this weighs heavily on you asproject director.You worry about everyone's security.It gives a kind of urgency to thesedeposits for two reasons.First, because the deposit has beenstable, more or less, for 1600 years.And it begins to deteriorate veryrapidly, so there's an urgency to gettingit out of the ground.And then secondarily because of thesesecurity concerns, we wanted to get thesefinds out as soon as possible.Essentially to, get everything, up to theGuatemala City. >> For conservation >> For conversation,So it's not stolen as have been so manyother objects at the site. >> Early on in the course I talk aboutirritating it is when people say, ohyou're an archaeologist.And what you need to be an archaeologist?You need to be lucky, and find coolthings and treasure and all that goodstuff.And usually I'm, when people do findgood, sexy things, I go [SOUND], but thisis important for me. >> Yeah.It is.We're not supposed to be looking forthese things as archaeologists, butsometimes they just hit us on the head. >> Yeah. >> We come across them and then they,as I said, have to be dealt with.They, the, they're worth looking at,though, for many reasons.Particularly a royal tomb such as thisbecause they're so dense withinformation.The Maya have invested so much energyinto them.But also thought and so, the, thedeposits that they left behind, such as in this royal tomb,tell us an enormous amount about whatthey thought kings did what kings weresupposed to do in the after life.And they give you a glimpse into the richinventory of material that they had atthe royal courts.In a way that would have been scattered,and broken, and not available to us byany other means.So, they're worth the investment.They're worth doing carefully.And from them we get a much clearer ideaof what Maya kingship might have beenlike for these people.Of, of the, the very hyper-elite, youmight call them.The most important individuals whogovern. >> We're seeing this society as a[SOUND] a pyramid and within that body isthe, the apex. >> Even, even beyond that I would say.These people are close to gods.In other words they're almost floatingabove earth in a sense literally.Through their ultimate homes in thesetombs but also because they'reindividuals who had unique communion withdeities.And shared some of the essence of gods asthe [CROSSTALK] tell us. >> How, how do you read.I mean that association with divinity isthat through the texts that we have?Or is it through your reading of thematerial in the tomb or a combination? >> It's from the inscriptions. >> Ah. >> Because they tell us that they aredivine, that they're sacred beings, thatthey're god like if not gods themselves.So, these royal personages such as the,elderly man who was put in this tomb.Are like humans but they are unlike themas well.And they give us a glimpse into what heldthese societies together.Which was, not only coercion and violenceand heavy taxation but also becausepeople believed in these kings. >> This interesting mix of symbolic andcoercive power that we see again andagain and again in these complexsocieties.Is he the only body in there?I mean? >> No, he's also went to his rewardwith a lot of in this case, infants andalso small children.We don't understand exactly what wasgoing on >> Are there other places where we knowthat happens. >> Yeah that's a good question.There really are only places like Tikalhave this kind of pattern.So something very localized, from what weunderstand to these children and infantswere not related to one another.So, how they got in the tomb is verylikely to involve sacrifice.And very likely to involve even captivesor coercive measures. >> Baby captives. >> Possibly. >> How do we know they're not related.I didn't, I [CROSSTALK] >> Because of some of their dentalcharacteristics. >> Mm-hm. >> Some of the characteristics of theirbodies tell us that they're very unlikelyto have been related. >> Mm-hm.Okay.So, let's look at some masks.Tell me about these things. >> Well one of the ways we find thingsis I said going into looters tunnels.And they, unfortunately discovered manyfine, fine objects.And occasionally however, they didn'texcavate things completely.They weren't scientists.They're not interested in that.They're after goods that they can market.On some of these. >> Pompeii. >> Absolutely.And, and in some of these tunnels, we diddiscover, remains, that were really veryspectacular.Covering, for instance, this tomb that wewere just looking at of the king, was, avery impressive building.And it was covered almost with everysquare inch by richly and deeply modeledstucco. >> And that survived? >> It did because the Maya aren't likeus.They don't build a structure and thenlevel it in order to start over again.They encase it within layer after layeras they do refurbishments orreconstructions, they'll simply placemore on the top. >> So they, they're doing their ownconservation in a way. >> That's right.And, and inside are cocooned, in thiscase, features that are preserved,because they haven't been hit by theelements.By rain, by sun over the millennium overthe hundreds of years.So, there's a little bit of paint leftand some cases a lot of paint.But also, these kinds of deeply carvedand modeled stucco that helped to tell ussomething about the building in whichthis king was found. >> When, when you know who all those,things, people, gods, animals. >> We, we do.And, and what we know also is we candiscover it very quickly that it'spossible to tunnel very close to these.And be able to eventually get an idea ofwhat the stuccoes looked like.Now you can't get a single image so thatthe slide we're looking at behind us isactually computer mosaic.It's done from many, many hundreds ofdifferent images. >> I see. >> That were taken simply with acamera. >> So photogrammetry. >> That's right and then they're piecedtogether.It actually becomes a three dimensionalmodel of what we call a point cloud.This was done by colleagues of ours atArkansas.And it allows us to see the stuccoes in away that's simply not possible today.We're not going to strip away all of theoverburden, it's better to tunnel.And in Guatemala we have laborers who arevery adept at tunneling.They do it safely.With great great deal of safety.They know which rock to remove.It's almost like a chess game.You have know which rock to move. >> So you're not sort of thinking, ohlets make this a tourist site we'll cleanit off.I mean how long would this last if youstripped all the cover off and said let'slook at the nice stucco masks.It wouldn't, it wouldn't last more than ayear or two at most.And >> Okay. >> We do know it was exposed for a bitof time before the Maya sealed it.Because the, the paint itself hassomewhat eroded, so it gives you a senseit was probably exposed for a generationat most. >> So is it telling a story?I mean, what's? >> Yeah, yeah.What it's doing, is it's showing us allaspects of the sun.And it including in this one behind us,the rain god of the Maya who is regardedas a kind of hairy, very noisy guy.Of course all storm gods are going to bequite noisy because of the sounds theyissue. >> Hairy? >> Hairy is, is something we understanda little bit less.But all of these masks which are showingthe gods facing out at us.Are separated also by what we call skybands.And what they're doing is they'reshowing, in a very schematic stylizedway, what the Maya thought the sky lookedlike.It contained elements of Venus, stars,and in this case little beads thatprobably indicate jewels.So it's a almost rich, it's almost apoetic conception, the jeweled sky. >> [CROSSTALK].Now on them are floating these masks ofthe sun, as I said and also in this onecase, of the rain god.The sun makes sense because we know thiswas a being that the royalty identifiedthemselves very closely with.And their title, one of their mostimportant titles generally was to likenthemselves to the sun. Now, we also see, >> Phenomenon yeah. >> Absolutely, and the other reason whywe suspect this is going on, is becauseit's not just one aspect of the sun, it'slooking at the sun an all of it's cycles.That is, as a being that might rise outof the Caribbean.As the sun would do on the easternhorizon as would pass over head.And eventually would sink into the Gulfof Mexico.And then as it passed underneath, theMaya thought of it as a being that hadjaguar-like characteristics.And so across this facade are all ofthese different aspects of the Sun god asit's going through cycles.Now why would that be important?It's because the idea that the king isjust not fixed and then he passes away isan important one.The idea that the king is part of acycle, ever returning, ever coming back.Is, is in some ways a reassuring messageto everyone around them.The kingship is always here. >> That's you see that in Greek andRoman art as well.You know, the chariot of the sun, and youknow, and the idea that, It comes, itgoes, but it comes back.And, >> Mm-hm. >> That's what's happening here. >> Mm-hm.